10 things you should never flush down your toilet

Remember to avoid flushing any of these items, which have been fished out from under our streets:

1. Food fat

A serious problem, as it tends to bind around wet wipes and other detritus like clay around straw. “It slips down sinks very easily when it’s warm,” says Evans, “but once it hits our sewers it cools down and congeals into what we call fatbergs.”

2. Condoms

Difficult to flush, but clearly many people manage it. Evans: “I’ve been down the sewers in central London and seen what appear to be fish on the surface. They’re actually condoms filled with air, bobbing around. It is pretty grim.”

3. Pets

Goldfish are most common, of course, but hamsters and gerbils are also seen. “They don’t help, because they’re quite sturdy little things.”

4. Nappies

These are a rarity, because of the sheer difficulty of getting one round the U-bend to begin with, but the blockages they cause can be terrible.

5. Human body parts

These have been found by Thames Water “flushers”, as sewer operatives are known – most often fingers or even hands. In truth, the people sending them down toilets probably have bigger things than sewer abuse to worry about.

6. Cotton buds and tampons

They just won’t break down. It may take months or years for a fatty ball of them to accumulate, but in the end they do block drains, which then have to be unblocked by hand.

7. Half a Mini

Probably a one-off, this. “It was dragged out of one of our major London sewers. Pretty bizarre. Obviously that didn’t get flushed down the toilet.”

8. Paint and building waste

The viscosity of paint causes problems when it joins a fatberg. Bits of rubble are heavy enough to settle in bends, providing a base on which wet wipes and food can collect.

9. Drug paraphernalia

Syringes are the main problem, being very nasty and unhygienic.

10. Food

A piece of bread won’t do any harm, but bones or even apple cores do cause trouble. Sweetcorn collects in large quantities in the sewers, as yellow as it was in the field.

To see the full story and for the source of this information see The Guardian:

Sir Joseph William Bazalgette, born 1819 in Enfield, is perhaps most known and recognised for the construction of London’s sewer network, in the 19th century, in response to the Great Stink of 1858 and the persistent outbreaks of cholera across the city.

The Thames, at the time, was actually a major health hazard to the population of London; an open sewer. The idea was to create a series of underground tunnels which would intercept and divert outflows along with the raw sewage that, at that point, flowed freely through the streets of London towards the Thames.

A number of pumping stations and sewage treatment works, across the capital, would also be built to channel, receive and then treat this waste. The whole network was first opened in 1865, although the project was not actually finished until almost a decade later.

Bazalgette’s vision allowed, to an extent, for the major unforeseen population increase, taking into consideration the amount of waste produced by households, giving each Londoner an allowance, determining the size of pipe needed, then doubling it.

He has famously been quoted as saying ‘we’re only going to do this once and there’s always the unforeseen’.

Known for his determination and attention to detail Bazalgette made sure he personally checked every connection to the sewage system, which is perhaps why he suffered bad health and illness soon after.

His famous engineering work can be seen throughout London today, as he didn’t spend his whole career underground:

Albert Embankment

Victoria Embankment

Chelsea Embankment

Maidstone Bridge

Albert Bridge

Putney Bridge

Hammersmith Bridge

The Woolwich Free Ferry

Battersea Bridge

Charing Cross Road

Garrick Street

Northumberland Avenue

Shaftesbury Avenue

For more information about Bazalgette watch this dedicated episode from a recent BBC docudrama series…